08. I Figured It Out!

"Things have really blown up, huh?" Giseok was the first to strike the start of the conversation, awkwardly closing the door behind. Not without sneaking a last look at Mirae.

"Hmm…" Taeho absently hummed in response as he looked at the bouquet from all angles.

It was quite big and he reckoned that it would be hard to find a place that would blend it right in.

"Is…everything okay?"

"It's fine, this is the most drama I have gotten since I came to Seoul," he waved it off, haphazardly ditching the bouquet on the lowest shelf of his book rack, "well apart from the slapping and drinks thrown at me after breaking up."

'It would be nice if Mirae would just dump a drink on me and yell at me," Giseok glumily maneuvered his large body so he could sit down on the sofa. A soft 'oh' escaped his mouth as he did, surprised as always when he sat down on the same sofa for two years now. He was not used to this sort of luxury and Taeho had plenty of it spare. He could never get used to Taeho's high-end office at the top floor of Phoenix's twenty storeyed building, looking over a view of Han Kang river from his glass wall. A form fitting chair and table was positioned just before the view and that took up about ten percent of the large room. He nervously glanced around, still unable to understand why there was a hidden bar corner in his workplace and why there was a fireplace as well. For someone who grew up the way that he did, Taeho seemed to blend right in with the rich crowd. Giseok had spent his years in Seoul as a bodyguard for said rich crowd and the countryside boy in him still couldn't understand what part of all that glamor was enticing.

"Well, I was waiting for the moment to happen. Mirae was bound to break up with you anyway."

"Why would you say that! You are hurting me!"

"Me? You are hurting me, you useless punk! I told you to throw that junk away."

Giseok covered his head with an arm, dodging a pen that furiously came flying in his way.

"Ah, don't do that! That's dangerous, Lee Taeho! Are you trying to blind me!"

Taeho shook his head, looking as though he was the disappointing father of the two and Giseok was the teenager.

"And how can I throw that stuff away? They are not mine to throw away, to begin with."

"What? How are you saying that after putting it up on the internet for everyone to see?"

"But I read it and I just couldn't do it. I don't know why you left but you were supposed to give that to her. It'd be sad if you just chuck it in the garbage before even letting her read about your feelings."

"What emotional crap. Why should she read that nonsense I wrote when I was seventeen, it's embarrassing. Besides I already left, there's no way I am going back to that shithole."

"But Yejeong must be reading that right now and smiling sadly at how you guys are never going to end up together. You should totally leave Haeson and start over with Yejeong."

"Yejeong this, and that. You watch too much of that romance bullshit. Get out if you are going to keep talking like that, i don't want to hear her name. I am not even going to go near her." Taeho swallowed the lump in his throat, looking away as he leaned against his chair. His heart was beating strangely. He hadn't heard her name in so long that he must have gone mad to hear it for the first time. He was desperately trying to stay off any thought about her but it seemed that keeping someone like Giseok from his past was a huge mistake.

"Don't be like that, Taehoooo. I am sorry." Giseok grinned, walking up to his best friend with his arms wide open. Taeho scowled as Giseok approached closer, yelling out protests as he got engulfed in his thick arms. Giseok swayed and hugged the furious man who was only a few centimeters shorter than him, waiting to see if he would hug back but Taeho stubbornly kept his arms to the side.

Taeho remembered the first time Giseok came to Seoul, looking for him. He had been robbed by some scammer as soon as he got to the city and had been sleeping at the metro station before Taeho saw and mistook him for a homeless man. Though technically, he was a homeless man. Taeho wasn't even sure how Giseok found out that he was in Seoul but it turned out that the stupid giant had simply went to the first place he thought of. It was the luckiest coincidence ever to happen. Giseok immediately bawled his eyes out after meeting Taeho and he hugged, hugged, hugged and refused to let go until Taeho threatened to punch him.

Giseok had always been beside Taeho's side, they grew up neighbors with Giseok being the one with parents who were always there for him and in a way, for Taeho as well. However, Taeho immediately doubted their common sense when they let their only son to go off to a capital metro city just to look for a boy who disappeared with no clue. Taeho tried to convince Giseok to go back home but he was just too stubborn so he simply went back to let his parents know that he was staying in Seoul now. Thankfully, Giseok knew not to mention anything about Taeho to his parents.

Safe to say that Taeho doesn't see Giseok leaving his side anything soon.

"I wish you were Mirae," A whisper came in his ear and Taeho frowned. He immediately began to push the larger guy off him. Giseok was pouting heavily like the big baby he was when he had to let go of Taeho.

"Is ruining my life not enough?"

"What life? You just work the entire week and then pretends to get married"

"What? Haeson and I are really getting married–"

"You're supposed to get married for love! And you can't even find a woman to stick with for more than a week, how're you going to stay married?"

"Ah whatever, I don't need this. Why do you always have to nag me, you're just like your mom."

"Don't bring up my mom, I miss her so much I could cry."

"When do you ever not cry? Now get out of my office."

"I thought we were getting lunch together?"

"Ha? I don't have time for that, I have to figure out what to do with this scandal. The internet is really scary nowadays, I know that because of you. This is all your fault."

"It's your fault too, you are the reason I got hammered in the first place, you and your fake engagement." Giseok looked away and then back at his best friend with guilt, "Anyway, what are you going to do? Can I help?"

"I probably get Haseon to make a statemen—"

"I got it! I figured it out!"

The two men turned to look at the door, Mirae standing there with the most surreal look on her eyes. She nodded, with a straight face and her eyes wide, mouth slightly aghast. This girl never seemed to have any emotion on her face. Taeho once believed that she was actually a robot sent to spy him because somebody knew that his ideas were certainly exceptional. The face she is making right now was the most emotion he had ever seen on her.

"Don't make any statement, I figured it out."